


Regression Toward the Mean

by Littleviolentone



Series: Anger of a Gentle Man [6]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, F/M, Fluff, Healthy Relationships, Hypothermia, I did my best and this is what happened, Please Don't Hate Me, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24301789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littleviolentone/pseuds/Littleviolentone
Summary: Life had been pretty good for Mac recently. Which of course meant he should have been prepared for the cosmic kick in the balls that came with their next mission.
Relationships: Riley Davis/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Anger of a Gentle Man [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648357
Comments: 29
Kudos: 136





	Regression Toward the Mean

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry this took so long. Every time I sat down to write my muse crumpled up and died.
> 
> I think she set herself on fire once.
> 
> I am thinking of wrapping up this series, and I would love your suggestions on how!
> 
> Love,  
> Little Violent One

The day had started off so well.

Just that morning he and Riley had been making breakfast in the kitchen, dancing off beat together to some stupid song she said she hated. They had laughed, and danced, and kissed until they got carried away. They only stopped when Bozer came in and yelled at them.

“Okay! New house rule! No fucking on the kitchen counters!” he yelped, one hand planted firmly over his eyes.

“Sorry, Boze” came Mac’s unapologetic response. He knew he should feel embarrassed but between his roommate’s reaction of cartoonish shock, and Riley’s reaction, it was hard to be anything but amused. 

When Bozer had made his presence known, Riley had immediately moved to cover her toplessness with Mac’s pajama shirt, which he was still wearing. The result was Riley sitting topless on the counter, wrapping the ends of the open shirt around her self, and effectively plastering her naked chest to his as she attempted to climb into the shirt with him.

Normally Mac wouldn’t mind this turn of events, but he wasn’t really into having an audience. Plus Riley seemed pretty uncomfortable, and this wasn’t exactly the first time Bozer had caught them. 

Smirking, Mac pried his shirt out of his girlfriend’s death grip, slid it off his shoulders and handed it to her. He kept his body straight and still to give her as much privacy as possible until she was covered, then stepped aside as she hopped down off the counter. She bolted straight back to the bedroom, leaving her own shirt on the other side of the kitchen where he had tossed it.

Bozer had neither stopped talking, nor removed his hand from his eyes since he came in. It took Mac calling his name several times before he noticed that their kitchen was no longer R rated. Mac, very good-naturedly, stood and let his friend berate him on his poor roommate etiquette before apologizing again and going to find Riley.

That day at work had started out pretty good too.

After calling Matty about his father’s demands, their fearless director had simply told him to “Let me handle this,” before hanging up. A couple hours later she called back to inform them that “everything’s been taken care of, and I expect you both at work bright and early tomorrow morning.”   
The following couple of missions passed without incident. Matty didn’t say what she had done to keep Riley’s job safe, and they both knew better than to ask.

So, yeah. Life had been pretty good for Mac recently. Which of course meant he should have been prepared for the cosmic kick in the balls that came with their next mission.

A research station in Alaska had been hacked and a significant portion of their data was stolen. There had also been a physical break-in at the facility, though as far as they could tell nothing had been taken. Matty was sending Riley to shore up their digital defenses and see if any of the stolen data could be recovered. Mac was to work on the physical security.

Of course going to northern Alaska in mid October meant that it was going to be fucking freezing, and also in the mountains. Riley, as predicted, was miserable. If there was one thing she hated more than working in the mountains, it was being cold while working in the mountains.

Mac was doing his best to keep from laughing at the sight of his grumpy little girlfriend bundled up in an over stuffed coat with her eyes barely visible between her fluffy hat and scarf. He managed it, but only just.

They were met at the door of the station by the two head researchers; Dr. Emily Van-Allen, a pretty middle aged woman that came up to his chin, and Dr. Isaac Lewis, a tall lanky old man with thick glasses and a seemingly permanently confused expression on his face.

“Let’s get you both in out of this cold!” Dr. Lewis called over the wind with a grandfatherly smile.

Inside, introductions were made with the rest of the research team as Mac and Riley hung up their coats. Riley immediately ducked under Mac’s arm in an effort to steal his body heat, which he saw Dr. Van-Allen grin at, but he wasn’t about to push her away.

The researchers were studying a new type of cutting edge underwater radar, the potential applications were amazing, but evidently someone didn’t like that they were here. In addition to the data theft and the break-in, a threatening message had been left graffitied onto the walls. A few of the researchers, including Dr. Van-Allen had even been followed after leaving work.

Riley, still wearing her hat and scarf, followed Dr. Lewis back to their server room. Mac watched as the old scientist lead her away with a gentlemanly hand over the small of her back, and held the door for her. He turned his attention back to Dr. Van-Allen who was by his side smiling brightly up at him in a way that made him duck his chin and blush.

“Don’t you worry, Dear” she said. “She’s in good hands with Isaac. Shall we?” She gestured down the hall. Mac nodded, still fighting his blush, and followed her lead.

“Was anyone in the building when the break-in happened?” He asked, trailing behind her quick pace down a narrow hallway.

“No,” she tossed over her shoulder. “They broke in after-hours. I found a broken window in my office in the back, but we just thought it was an animal of some sort. Moose out number people out here. But then one of our interns found this.”

She open a door into a lab where Mac saw smashed computers, broken desk chairs, and blood red spray paint across one wall. Three foot high letters scrawled ominously across the back of the room read; “GET OUT”.

“I don’t think that was a moose.” Mac said dryly as he moved further into the room. He picked his way carefully through the debris, mindful of potential evidence as he stepped closer to the wall.

“Oh good,” Dr. Van-Allen snorted. “You concur with our findings.” Mac smirked back at her snarky reply.

“Is there anyone, a group or organization maybe, who’ve been vocally against your work?” he asked.

“To be honest, it’s a little town. We’re literally in the middle of nowhere, not many people even know we’re here, even fewer care, and most of them have bigger problems to deal with.” the little doctor shrugged. “There’s an old hermit further up the mountain that disagrees with anything any formal power structure does, but I think that’s mostly just how he entertains himself when he comes to town.”

Mac nodded as he worked his way through the room, letting the debris tell it’s own story much the same way he would work through a bomb site. Dr. Van-Allen stayed by the door and kept out of his way and quiet unless he had a question occur to him as he went.

As he worked and talked with her, he grew to really like the woman. She was whip smart and had a dry sarcastic sense of humor that would have fit right in at the Phoenix, but she had a sort of motherly warmth to her that Mac was incredibly unfamiliar with but desperately craved. She also called him Dear, which Riley found very cute when they all met up for lunch. 

“That’s okay,” she said giggling as they ate. “Isaac’s been calling me Sheifale, since I got their system back online.”

“He called you a what?” Mac asked in bafflement around a mouth-full of ham sandwich.

“Gross!” she laughed, playfully pushing his shoulder. “He calls me Sheifale. Apparently it means lamb. Isaac said he calls all his grandkids that. He’s a sweetheart.”

“Well did your new sweetheart give you any ideas as to why someone would do this to them?” he teased.

“Don’t worry Mac, you’re still my sweetheart” Riley rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair just to annoy him. “And no, to answer your question. He couldn’t think of any reason someone would be doing this.”

“What ever the reason it’s gotta be personal,” he mused. “This isn’t like vandalizing your local gas station. As near as I can tell this guy, or guys, arrived on foot and went out of their way to break in at the back of the building where there aren’t any cameras.” 

“That’s a lot of work,” Riley joined his theorizing. “Especially with how remote this station is, and the added risk this time of year.”

“I agree. You don’t hike miles through snowy moose and bear filled forests at night, just to break a few things and splash some paint around.” Mac shook his head in frustration. “What did they get off the servers?” Riley set her laptop up between them on the table and pulled up a screen full of computer code that meant very little to Mac.

“I was able to recover most of the data. Whoever got in knew enough to be able to copy the files but didn’t know how to wipe the drive or hide what they were doing, so we’re definitely not looking for anyone with tech skills. If I had to guess, I say most of the system damage here was done on accident.” she was on a roll now. “Near as I can tell, all this guy got was data from the radar tests. It’s interesting enough if you work in the field, I guess, but I can’t see a reason to steal it or to terrorize the people here over it.” 

Mac sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair in annoyance. It didn’t make any sense, they had to be missing some piece of the puzzle, but clearly they weren’t finding it anytime soon. They finished up their lunches and decided to packed up their gear and head back to their hotel and talk it all over with Matty and the rest of the team.

They said their goodbyes to the Doctors, who both gave them warm farewells. Dr. Lewis even gave Riley a peck on the cheek and told her to “keep that young man of yours out of trouble for now, Sheifale.”

“I’ll do my best Isaac,” she laughed and hugged him back.

The drive down the mountain road to the little town was a lot freakier without the little bit of watery winter light they’d had on the way up. It was made even worse by the huge, modified off road truck that came tearing out of thin air and onto the road behind them. The cab of their little jeep was was flooded with the truck’s high-beams and they were both jerked wildly as whoever was driving tried to ram their car off the road.

Riley did her best to keep the car steady but the steep, icy road was doing her no favors at the moment. Mac couldn’t see anything of the truck but it’s headlights, and he couldn’t think while they were being tossed around the cab. Far too soon, the bigger truck forced them off the road and into a deep snowbank where they came to a very sudden stop.

The airbags went off and Mac’s whole awareness narrowed down to the pain in his face and the blood in his mouth for a few dazed seconds before he was reaching for Riley. She was unconscious and had a bloody nose of her own, but miraculously, nothing seemed broken. 

He had to get her out of here. The truck’s momentum and the ice probably forced him further down the road, but that was no guarantee that whoever it was wouldn’t come back for them. Mac very much doubted that would be a fun experience.

Through much struggling, cursing, and creative use of his pocket knife, Mac was able to force his way out of the car through the passenger side window. He made his way around to the driver’s side door and had to dig for a while till he could open it enough to get to her.

He gently ran his hands over her head neck and back, checking for injuries one more time before he turned her and shook her shoulder.

“Riley,” he called trying to rouse her. “Come on, Riles. Come on, Baby, you gotta wake up. Please.”

Slowly she came to. Groggy and in pain, she called his name. He shushed her gently and took her chin in one hand, shining the light from his pocket knife into her eyes with the other. Her pupils contracted to two different sizes, meaning she most likely had a concussion. 

All his first aid training told him not to move her. All his field experience and survivalist training told him not to stay here. He should get to a more defensible position, somewhere with shelter and fire wood. It was a choice between the lesser of two evils, both had risks but no matter which he chose, he had to choose fast.

In the end Mac decided that the best chance Riley had of getting help was to secure her here as best as he could while he went for help. He hated it, he hated everything about it. Leaving the woman he loved alone and hurt, in the cold, with an attacker still possibly on the loose went against every fiber of his being. But the variables of their current situation dictated that Riley would have a better chance of survival if he left her to get help.

Mind made up, pushing down panic, and with no time to spare, Mac got to work. He shut the door to keep her as warm as possible before moving to the back of the car to fish the emergency kit from the trunk. He took stock of the supplies and removed the survival blanket, the road flares, and the medical tape. 

Using the jeep’s owners manual and the medical tape, he cut and layered the pages until he had a shape flexible enough to bend around her neck, but rigid enough to support and immobilize her head without putting pressure on her throat. He rearranged her scarf to act as a cushion for his make-shift neck brace and laid the seat back as far as it would go. She had passed out again and her too still body chilled him more than the snow around them now. 

The engine wouldn’t start, so the car’s heater wasn’t an option, instead Mac wrapped the survival blanket around her torso, tucking it underneath her like a child. Last second he decided to layer his own coat over top of that to keep her just that little bit warmer.

With Riley as safe and secure as Mac could make her under the circumstances, he kissed her goodbye and staunchly refused to let his mind wander to what ifs. He allowed himself one deep breath before closing up the car and making his way to the road. He double checked that the car was visible in the dark and began trekking his way back up the mountain towards the research station.

His pace was fast, faster than was probably wise considering the temperature and altitude. His throat felt as if he had gargled glass shards, his lungs burned with cold, and he had lost feeling in his face and limbs. Thoughts of ice crystals forming in his lungs causing them to literally burst from cold cycled through his mind, but he didn’t have the energy to push it away.

Mac didn’t know how long he’d been walking when he became aware of a noise filtering through the trees. An engine? 

A car!

Help!

Salvation! 

He had no extra breath to be able to yell. He fumbled with frozen fingers at his pockets, clumsily drawing out a road flare. He nearly dropped it twice before managing to ignite it and by then the car was almost on top of him.

A large blue SUV came screeching to a precarious stop feet from Mac’s legs on the slick, icy pavement. The dirty, snow edged windshield framed the pale face of an absolutely astonished Dr. Lewis.

“Help,” he managed to croak. The old doctor blinked once in shock before exiting the car and coming up to Mac at a run.

“Mister MacGyver! What’s happened? Where’s Riley?” Dr. Lewis questioned while leading the exhausted agent to his car and pulling a blanket over his shoulders. “Focus now, young man. I need your answer, Where is Riley?”

In a rough shaky voice, Mac explained the situation as best he could. The man was all business then; bundling Mac into the car and calling to someone for help on a radio set into the dash. Mac did his best to respond to Dr. Lewis’s questions, but he was fading fast. The next few hours passed in blurry flashes.

Dr. Lewis was carrying a bundled up Riley to the car, his heart lurched.

He was lying in a bright room. All around him were the voices of strangers, he couldn’t see her anymore and wanted to panic.

He was strapped down and immobile, surrounded by the familiar ‘whumpa-whumpa’ of helicopter blades. No sign of Riley.

Slowly, the world started to swim back into something resembling clarity. Mac became aware of the pillow under his head, the blanket pulled up over his chest, the smell of antiseptic, and the annoying repetitive beep of a heart monitor. When he opened his eyes and blinked away the blurriness Mac saw Riley, beautiful and still in her sleep, in a hospital bed next to his own.

For a moment he just drank in the sight of her, looking small and fragile but beautifully, miraculously alive. The wires and machines hooked up to her told him that her vitals were steady and normal, it was enough to make him want to drop to his knees in relief, had he been standing.

But as much as the readouts on the machines reassured him, his heart demanded he confirm her well being with his own two hands. He was struggling to sit up and trying to figure out how he was going to be able to make it over to Riley’s side, when he was startled by a low voice coming from the end of the bed.

“I think it would be best if you were to lay still, young man.” Dr. Lewis sat in an uncomfortable looking chair positioned between the foot of Mac’s bed and Riley’s.

There were any number of questions Mac could have asked then, but he found himself unable to vocalize any of them. The old man regarded the young with a warm look of grandfatherly compassion and seemed to read Mac’s mind.

“Would you like me to tell you what happened?” he waited for Mac to nod his head before continuing. 

“Both of you will be absolutely fine in time,” he began. “You are being treated for exposure, a minor concussion, and hairline fractures to two ribs. Your young lady has a slightly more severe concussion, and a fractured clavicle. I followed your directions to your car and carried our Miss Davis to the back seat of my car where she would be warmer while we all waited for the forest ranger I radioed for to arrive. The ranger escorted us to his station, from there the both of you were helicoptered here to the hospital. Any questions?”

“Do we know who ran us off the road?” came Mac’s gravelly voice after a moment.

“Not as of yet, no.” the Doctor kept a calm steady gaze on him. Mac got the feeling the man was seeing more of him than Mac wanted him to. “They did however find his car abandoned further down the mountain. It’s only a matter of time before he is caught.”

He had gotten away. Mac was livid. This man had attacked innocent people, and now nearly killed Riley, and Mac had let him get away. He was furious, and scared, and heartbroken, and in pain. The more upset he got, the heavier his breathing became, and he wished Dr. Lewis would stop staring at him.

“Angus, my boy,” Dr. Lewis spoke gently. “What’s wrong?”

Mac didn’t know why, but he found himself want to answer. He spent so much time trying to take care of everyone else that anyone taking an interest in his well being was overwhelming. He still wasn’t used Riley doing it.

“A few weeks ago,” Mac’s voice wavered with excess emotion. “My dad said that my relationship with Riley is putting us both in unnecessary danger. I kicked him out of my house. I didn’t believe him, Riley and I have been through too much to just give each other up because he said so. But the amount of times she’s been hurt...”

“You’re beginning to wonder if perhaps your father had a point?” Dr. Lewis guessed. “If you are possibly putting her in danger by being with her, and if she may not just be safer if you left?”

Mac nodded. “The correlation is pretty strong,” he admitted miserably.

“You are far too intelligent a young man not to realize that correlation is not indicative of causation.” The Doctor argued calmly. “Angus, are you familiar with the term Regression Toward the Mean?”

Mac nodded again.

“Explain it to me, please.”

“It’s a statistical phenomenon,” Mac recited by memory. “It’s the tendency for data to average out. No matter how much higher or lower a data point may be outside of the normal range, eventually everything swings back to center.”

“Precisely,” said Dr. Lewis. “Therefore I would argue that what you are experiencing is just a low point. In the same way things cannot always be good, mathematically things cannot always be this bad either. Eventually you will both be back to normal. Regression Toward the Mean.”

Mac was stunned, he hadn’t had anyone comfort him like this since his grandpa. He sat on the bed blinking back tears and trying to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“My boy, I cannot claim to know you well,” the Doctor moved to stand by the side of Mac’s bed. “But in the short amount of time I’ve had to observe the both of you I have come to the conclusion that you make each other strong enough to with stand any high or low points that come your way.”

Tears of too many emotions to name were streaming freely down Mac’s face. He was right and Mac knew it, he just needed to hear it put a different way. Doctor Lewis smiled warmly and put a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder as Mac sighed in emotional exhaustion.

The local police did eventually catch the man responsible for all the attacks. As it turned out He was also a research scientist who had been considered to head up the radar project, but due to red flags in his psych eval, he was eventually passed over for the team of Dr. Van-Allen and Dr. Lewis. The man had apparently suffered a psychotic break which lead to him terrorizing the research station.

Riley and Mac had to stay in the hospital for longer than either of them would’ve liked. Riley was getting close to staging an escape attempt, and Mac was 100% on board, when she got a surprise call from Jack.   
Calls from Jack were often few and far between. He kept in touch with his Phoenix family as much as he could, but with how classified his mission was, it wasn’t anywhere near enough for any of them.

Jack’s name and ridiculous ID photo flashed across Riley’s phone for a moment as the two of them sat stunned, until Riley thought to actually tap accept.

“Jack?” she asked turning on speaker phone and holding the device on a flat palm between the two of them.

“Howdy, Kiddo!”came a familiar shout. “I heard you’ve been getting yourself in some trouble since I left. What’s up with that?” 

“Well...” Riley started locking eyes with Mac. They had a lightning fast conversation held entirely through silent looks and came to an agreement. “Mac’s here with me, and we should probably start from the beginning.”

And then they were telling him the whole story. How Billy had broken her heart, and Mac had comforted her. How they both individually realized their feelings. How they got together, and how they had been tested since. They kept all of the more intimate parts to themselves, Jack didn’t need all the details. 

For his part, Jack growled, and laughed, and cussed in all the right places and with great enthusiasm. He was shocked, as they had expected, and loudly declared that they had both better take care of each other or he would kick both their asses.

Despite his typical high-volume crudeness, Jack was nothing but supportive of them together. That was a huge weight off of Mac’s shoulders that he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying, and Mac hadn’t seen Riley smile quite like that in a long time. He was reminded once again how much he loved her.

Finally they were back home in LA, to finish their recovery and to get back to normal. Or rather, what passed as normal for the two of them.

Mac was feeling better than he had in months, both physically and mentally. In fact, he was feeling so good that it took him far longer than it should have to realize that Riley wasn’t.

She was perfectly happy, but Mac was beginning to notice that she was starting to get dizzy spells every once in a while. She was also getting tired more often, sometimes even taking naps at work. When she turned down coffee one morning because the smell made her nauseous, Mac got worried.

It took a lot of pestering and begging from Mac and Bozer, a vague but well meant threat from Desi, and a direct order from Matty for Riley to finally agree to go see a doctor.

Mac was sitting on the couch, waiting for her to get home from her appointment and trying to convince himself that there was no reason to stress.

The calm act shattered entirely when nearly shot through the roof after being startled by the sound of the door closing behind her. Riley walked into the living room looking dazed and far away and Mac felt his anxiety clawing it’s way further up his chest.

“What did he say?” he begged. “Are you okay? Is everything alright? Riles?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. There was a strange look on her face that he couldn’t quite read. “We’re okay Mac. We’re both okay.”

“What?” his brain was short circuiting, her words made no sense.

“All the dizzy spells, the exhaustion, the nausea,” she explained. “You thought it meant I was sick, but I’m not. I’m pregnant.”

A hydrogen bomb could have gone off behind Mac just then and he wouldn’t have noticed. His vision actually whited out for a second as he was overcome with emotion. He wasn’t even quite sure what it was that he was feeling, but it was more than he had ever felt before.

It wasn’t until his eyes refocused and he saw Riley’s blinding smile that he could finally identify the strange sensation as joy. Pure unadulterated joy. He hauled Riley into his arms, lifting her off her feet as she laughed and held him tight while he spun them around the room in celebration.

When Mac finally sat down again he pulled her directly onto his lap, Riley didn’t seem to mind and snuggled closer. His fingers wove their way into her hair and cradled the back of her head. She was pregnant. He was going to be a father. They were going to be parents.

“So, I guess that means you’re happy about this?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him. He snorted.

“I am fucking ecstatic,” he chuckled back. “What did the doctor say? Are you sure everything’s alright?”

“He said I’m about a two and a half months along, which I figured out meant I was pregnant during our Alaska mission and I almost had a panic attack” she started. 

Mac could understand why, his blood ran cold at the realization. Riley had been hospitalized on that mission, what could that have done to the baby? But before he could slide too far into a panic spiral, she continued. 

“So I demanded that he check and double check everything, and then I asked him to do it again. And after all of that was done he gave us both a clean bill of health, handed me a bunch of outdated pregnancy pamphlets and gave me a prescription for some prenatal vitamins and sent me on my way. And I know I’m gonna freak out about this all over again later, but I just… I’m so happy right now Mac!”

Mac leaned in and kissed her, taking the opportunity to mumble “Me too” against her lips. As he sat there holding her and basking in the glow of this newly discovered joy, his mind was whirling a mile a minute. She was talking about calling her mom to tell her the happy news when a thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Wait a minute,” Mac interrupted her. “If you’re at two and a half months, then that means the baby will be here by July.” Riley nodded in agreement, she couldn’t seem to keep from smiling and wasn’t about to try. 

“The Doctor’s best guess on the due date is July 17” she said.

Now, with an actual date in mind to look forward to, everything seemed so much more real. Riley was right, they would both be freaking out later. Probably many times over in the months to come, but he wanted every crazy second of it. For now though, they were both calm and happy and hopeful, and Mac was content just to hold his family in his arms and enjoy the peace while it lasted.

**Author's Note:**

> It is 2 in the fucking morning.
> 
> My head hurts, and this is the third time this godforsaken site has made me re-upload this story.
> 
> I desperately hope it works this time, and that some of you like it. 
> 
> I worked really hard on this, but I won't be uploading it again. Let me know what you thought!
> 
> Love,  
> Little Violent One


End file.
